Hearing-impaired individuals may benefit from communication systems and devices configured to provide assistance in order to communicate with other individuals over a communication network. For example, captioning services have been established to provide assistive services (e.g., text captions) to the hearing-impaired user communicating with a communication device (e.g., caption phone, caption enabled device, etc.) that is specifically configured to communicate with the captioning service.
For example, FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional communication system 100 configured to facilitate an assisted call between a hearing-impaired user 102 and a far-end user 104. The communication system 100 may include a first communication device 110, a second communication device 120, and a captioning service 130. The first communication device 110 and the second communication device 120 may be coupled together to facilitate communication there between via a first network 140. The first communication device 110 and the captioning service 130 may be coupled together to facilitate communication there between via a second network 150. For example, the first network 140 and the second network 150 may each be implemented according to the standards and bandwidth requirements of a communication network (e.g., Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN), cellular network, Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) networks, etc.).
The captioning service 130 may be a telecommunication assistive service, which is intended to permit a hearing-impaired person to utilize a communication network and assist their understanding of a conversation by providing text captions to supplement the voice conversation. The captioning service 130 may include an operator, referred to as a “call assistant,” who serves as a human intermediary between the hearing-impaired user 102 and the far-end user 104. During a captioning communication session, the call assistant may listen to the audio signal of the far-end user 104 and “revoice” the words of the far-end user 104 to a speech recognition computer program tuned to the voice of the call assistant. Text captions (also referred to as “captions”) may be generated by the speech recognition computer as a transcription of the audio signal of the far-end user 104, and then transmitted to the first communication device 110 being used by the hearing-impaired user 102. The first communication device 110 may then display the text captions while the hearing-impaired user 102 carries on a normal conversation with the far-end user 104. The text captions may allow the hearing-impaired user 102 to supplement the voice received from the far-end and confirm his or her understanding of the words spoken by the far-end user 104.
In a typical call, the first communication device 110 may include a device that is configured to assist the hearing-impaired user 102 in communicating with another individual (e.g., far-end user 104), while the second communication device 120 may comprise a conventional voice telephone (e.g., landline phone, cellular phone, smart phone, VoIP phone, etc.) without such abilities and without the capability to communicate with the captioning service 130.
The subject matter claimed in the present disclosure is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one example technology area where some embodiments described in the present disclosure may be practiced.